


The Oak Leaf Chest

by CyanPanties



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:37:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanPanties/pseuds/CyanPanties
Summary: Forty years later, five weeks before I leave, looking through her things, i have been told by a little piece of worn out paper stuck in a corner of her and Father’s room to open the Chest.





	The Oak Leaf Chest

For as long as I can remember, there has been a tall oak tree outside in the garden of my home. It has more than a hundred years, once an expert botanic said, but it shouldn't be as wide as it is tall, given the size, he also said. It is a very strange occurrence, was the verdict, an oak tree as wide as it is tall and as tall as it is wide. Like a square cylinder with branches and roots. 

I have lived in this house for more than forty years. Since i was nothing more than a little ten year old. 

When my parents arrived with me, the house was painted in green, green that has with time become gray. The garden had obviously been neglected for a very long time, grass reaching Father’s knees and weeds staining Mother’s dress. The few neighbours we had were far away from the exact place the one story house resided in, the thick chimney smoke never brought any complaints. 

Since my family used to live in a hot state where summer was unbearable and winter barely noticeable, the colder months in this brick house were very difficult to stand. But we managed. The chimney full of lumber, a nice soup and wool blankets scared the cold away. The big wide Oak a permanent companion through the window. 

Snow falling from its branches, and leaves falling to the bed of white covering its roots where later they would find a place inside the old large wooden Chest right besides the chimney, probably made for lumber but neglected in order to fulfill a purpose no one but Mother knew about. She seemed adamant on keeping the Oak’s leaves, the Chest full of leaves once winter went back to hiding behind spring. What she did with those leaves, until this day I do not know, but that is the reason this story is being told. 

The leaves in this Chest simply disappeared, I thought, so many years and I never saw them leave, Mother did something to them that nobody could know. Not even Father, not even the maid, not even her own mother, not even me. 

Forty years later, five weeks before I leave, looking through her things, i have been told by a little piece of worn out paper stuck in a corner of her and Father’s room to open the Chest. 

The wide Oak was always there, its fallen leaves guarded in some magical place inside Mother’s Chest -which we had begun calling it as soon as she got ownership of the key- and its big trunk a pleasant place to sit in spring and summer between the larger roots that rose from the earth and formed the perfect throne. Mother loved to sit there to read, I also sometimes was there, sometimes with her, sometimes on my own. After her death I never sat there again, but the Oak glazed at Father and me from the window in the living room, looking every day more majestic than the last.

For more than forty years I have lived in this house and the permanent presence of the Oak outside reminds me why I never wanted to leave until recently.

Mother died sitting in those roots. She fell asleep in the throne made by the roots almost as if specially for her, in perfect reading position, and never woke up. The leaves that fell in winter since then dying in the soil.

It was an unknown cause, said the doctor, something the medical field is not yet aware of. 

Mother was buried under those roots, the Oak being hers forever. 

We never knew when the Oak first sprouted, and Father wanted to cut it down with a badly sharpened ax one night. But the mystical connection Mother had with the tree and the knowledge that she would have been extremely sad had he done that brought him to a crying pulp that did nothing but weep and call for her name. 

The love of his life was gone and the only memento the Oak.

Here i am, forty years after first arriving at the Oak’s house with Mother and Father, and thirty years after Mother was buried at the roots of the tree she loved so much. The key for her Chest was not buried with her, the key left hanging with a beautiful golden chain from one of the tree’s branches. The key of her Chest is now in my hand, giving me a sense of dread and scaring me out of my wits. 

I have no idea why she would want someone to open the Chest after her death and Father died ten years ago and since her death he never looked at that Chest again.

Scared and ready to run, afraid of what I could find, the Chest’s lock looks at me with its one cold golden eye, urging me to plug the key inside. Key that rests in my trembling hand and i say 

“Fuck it. I’m fifty years old and there's nothing that can happen but sudden death”

But oh hell, how much would i hate to just die inside this house with no one but the faithful elderly maid to find my body after three days when she returns to help me with the move. 

And so I put the key inside the lock and turn it to the right.

The lock opens with a clack

And the Chest…

That's a story for another time.


End file.
